Good morning.
Is empathetic leadership over?
That’s the thesis of an article this week from our one-time sibling publication, TIME. And the authors have plenty of evidence to support it: Amazon’s Andy Jassy requiring a return to work; Salesforce’s Marc Benioff instituting a strict performance culture; Delta Air Lines banning its own employees from Delta Sky Clubs; Goldman Sachs nixing free coffee. As layoffs grow and the economy weakens, power is perceptibly shifting from employees to employers.
But don’t let the cyclical noise obscure the long-term trend. As I argue in Tomorrow’s Capitalist, the economy has changed dramatically over the last 50 years, with physical capital becoming ever less important in determining corporate value, and human capital becoming ever more. The companies that win in the future may or may not offer free food or unlimited time off. But they will be those that figure out how best to attract, retain and fully engage great talent.
